


Appropriate Behaviour

by UnicornAttack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, F/F, organised crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 12:35:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnicornAttack/pseuds/UnicornAttack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When her brother Theo goes missing, Asha Grey is put into hiding by the police and given a bodyguard of sorts - a clumsy ox of a woman called Briony Teller. Two weeks drag by, and Asha finally manages to convince Briony to let her out of the flat for one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appropriate Behaviour

**Author's Note:**

> Serious canon divergence, but don't let it put you off!

It takes Asha two weeks to persuade Briony to let her out of the flat.  
"The police have said - "  
"Fuck the police," Asha replies brusquely, almost giggling at how much she sounded like Theo.  
"Miss Grey, I've already told you - "  
"And I'm still asking. Briony, I swear to god, if I don't get out of this flat for at least two hours I'm going to lose my fucking mind. All I'm asking is one night in a - Jesus, I don't know, a pub or something."  
Briony looks helplessly at Asha, who is eight inches shorter than her but remarkably assertive, and can hear the irresponsible part of her mind telling her go on, it might be a laugh. Then she pictures Renton Barton, blood pouring from the gunshot wound in his chest, his eyes wide and frightened. But when Renton was killed, it was where people knew him. Asha is hundreds of miles from anyone who might recognise her.  
Go on, that irresponsible part of her whispers. Go on. Just go for it.  
"I'm not entirely certain," she says, even though she is.  
"Please. If you think anyone's acting shiftily you can get me out of there, can't you? Just for tonight, Briony."  
Absurdly, Briony thinks of 'The Shining', and although Asha isn't likely to start hallucinating ghosts and chase after her with an axe, she's used to being outside most of the time. Being shut up in this poky little flat must be driving her insane.  
"Fine. I'm going with you, though, and I refuse to go further than one mile from this building. I don't want you to talk to anyone unless you know them and you're absolutely certain you can trust them."  
"Thanks, mum," Asha snorts, rolling her eyes, but she's smiling. She pulls on her black army boots and does the laces up with surprising dexterity and speed. As they leave the apartment building, she hooks her arm through Briony's and grins at her.  
"Why is your arm in mine?" Briony asks.  
"Oh, lighten up. I'm just being friendly."

Asha is amused at how afraid of drinking Briony seems to be. She only has one drink all night, a pint of cider, which she tentatively sips in between quiet conversation. They're sitting in the corner of a dingy, smoky little pub called The White Wolf, which is full of surly-looking middle-aged men with beards and tattoos who were probably once in a heavy metal band at some point during their adolescence. Asha likes it. Briony, not so much, but she's more concerned with keeping Asha safe than anything else. Two hours in, Asha puts her empty pint glass down on the table heavily and looks intently at Briony.  
"I wanna know something," she says, slurring slightly. "Would you go to bed with me?"  
The question makes Briony choke on her drink and she spends the next minute or so coughing hoarsely, her face bright red.  
"Miss Grey, I hardly think that's an appropriate question!"  
Asha grins cheekily.  
"Would you?"  
"I'm not taking advantage of you when you're drunk. We should go back."  
Briony helps Asha up and half-carries her out of the pub, leaving behind the smell of cigarette smoke and the roaring laughter of The White Wolf's regular patrons. They walk back to the flat slowly, Briony holding Asha up, Asha staggering a little. The few people still out at this time of night stare at them.  
"People're starting to stare at us," Asha mumbles.  
"People have stared at me my entire life," Briony replies bitterly. "If they want to stare, let them. I don't care."  
Briony all but carries Asha up the stairs and leaves her in her bedroom to go to bed. She may be drunk but she's not totally incapacitated. Five minutes later, there's a heavy knock on the door of the living room.  
"What is it, Miss Grey?"  
"Can I come in?"  
"Do you have clothes on?"  
"Yeah. I'm not a freak."  
Debatable, Briony thought spitefully.  
"OK."  
The door opens, painfully slowly, and Asha appears, wearing a faded Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt and a pair of elderly pyjama trousers.  
"I wanted to say sorry for earlier," she says, still slurring. "I'm not normally like that."  
"That's fine. We all do stupid things when we're drunk."  
Asha smiles at that - not her usual cocky half-smile, but a warm, friendly one. She pads over to the sofa, leans down and kisses Briony lightly on the cheek.  
"Night."  
Before Briony can say anything, she leaves.

Three weeks later, Asha finally manages to persuade Briony to sleep with her. It's an awkward, fumbling affair, and Briony's clearly never slept with a woman before, but Asha's surprisingly patient and gently guides her hand until she manages to get two fingers inside the smaller woman. Briony has no idea whether she's doing it right or not, but the look of pure bliss on Asha's face and the noises she's making are encouraging. Afterwards, they lie side-by-side for an indeterminate amount of time - it could be minutes or it could be hours, neither is sure; there's no clock in the room to tell them - until the phone rings. Briony answers it. It's a brief conversation, and when she comes back to the bed she looks slightly stunned.  
"It's your brother," she says simply. "They've found him."

They had found Theo, but unfortunately, they'd found him three days too late. The little boy who found him had been dared to go into the abandoned house, which had once belonged to the Stark family and which the Boltons had seized a mere four days before Theo's mysterious disappearance. He had run screaming from the house, howling that he had seen a dead man in the basement. The local police investigated and discovered Theo's body, which was emaciated, dirty and missing five fingers, handcuffed to the hot-water pipes in the basement. The smell down there apparently made two officers rush outside to throw up and another to very nearly faint. He had probably died of a combination of starvation and the infection that had been ravaging his body in his final days. Asha was moved back into her old flat in North London, and Briony stayed with her, slamming the door in the face of any reporter or journalist who came looking for the older sister of the tragic murder victim, as they had heard him called at least once ("It's not murder, it's manslaughter," Asha had murmured weakly). She had seen it happen to Renton's family and she wasn't letting it happen to Asha too.  
"You don't have to be so defensive," Asha intoned one evening.  
"I won't let the bastards invade your privacy, Ash. I know what it feels like."  
And she did - she remembered the way one reporter had relentlessly interrogated her, finishing with the question 'Do you feel responsible for what happened to Mr Barton?', which made Briony want to punch the twat in the face. Asha didn't lack any social skills, but she was impulsive.  
One night, Asha turned to Briony.  
"Thank you," she said. "And I'm sorry."  
For one brief, fleeting moment Briony felt that she might cry. Then the feeling passed, and instead she simply hugged Asha, fierce and protective, and silently hoped that the storm would soon pass and things could just go back to normal.


End file.
